


Onsra

by artificialmac



Series: Foreign Word Fics [17]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Almost Love Confessions, Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Complicated Relationships, Friends With Benefits, Idiots in Love, Lovers to Friends, M/M, Sleeping Together, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 13:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19006744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artificialmac/pseuds/artificialmac
Summary: Onsra (Boro language of India) – That bittersweet feeling of loving for the last time — in other words, that feeling you get when you know a love won’t last.Brooke and Vanjie broke up a few months ago. Neither of them took it particularly well. So when they find themselves touring for three months, they fall into old patterns that aren’t healthy for either of them.





	Onsra

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my series of one-shots inspired by foreign words with no English translation.

They had tried once. Right after the show finished taping, they had tried. It was a strange time, with Vanessa getting booked left and right, still riding high from her season 10 fame, and Brooke doing her usual gigs, with the cast list for Season 11 not revealed yet. They found comfort in the chaos. Traveling and high off of first love, they didn’t think about anything else. They didn’t think about the time they had left. They thought about the now, and their hands and lips and brains would just have to catch up, they reasoned.

They tried to make it work. Really, they had. Brock had done the damn thing. The thing he had been scared of the most. But in the end, it was Jose that pulled away. As soon as Brock had mentioned their changing circumstances with the show coming out, Jose had made up his mind.

They wanted different things. He would say. 

They had different views. He would say.

They were so in love that it scared the both of them shitless. 

He wouldn’t say.

They broke up. And it sucked. And it was hard. 

And maybe the hardest part was that it wasn’t impossible. Brock got up in the morning. He brushed his hair. He showered. He went to his shows. He went to sleep. 

It only really hurt when he breathed.

It was mainly because he didn’t let himself really process the breakup. He had said he wanted to try, but Jose wouldn’t listen. 

If Brock didn’t think about it, it didn’t matter. 

He was the Ice Queen for a reason, right? 

He didn’t let things get to him, right? 

He didn’t let people get to him, right? 

He didn’t let the love of his life slip away.

Right?

Jose was not fine. 

There was a hole in his chest. 

He felt like everyone could see. And maybe when he cried uncontrollably in two bars in one night, they could. But his friends had all told him he looked fine, from the outside at least. He could smile and he could perform. And he could pretend the hole in his chest was just for decoration. 

Jose would exhaust himself every day, so when he finally slept it was dreamless. He doesn’t think he could have survived if even in sleep he were accosted with that face. That face he had grown so used to seeing. Via facetime, or on Instagram, or in his memories.

They were both hurting. They had both tried and failed to get over it. So, when they found themselves falling into similar patterns, and falling into bed together, neither of them stopped to ask if it was a good idea.

It was decidedly not. 

One night on tour together turned into two weeks, turned into a month, turned into the worst decision either of them had ever made.

They had never said that important four-letter word to each other. Well, at least not while they were both conscious and aware. Brock had whispered it into Jose’s hair in his queen-sized bed in Canada, way too early to be considered normal.

Jose had said it to Brock’s door, as it shut in his face for a final time. 

It didn’t matter now. But maybe it should.

Tour was long, and there was plenty of time to talk, so they didn’t. And they didn’t. And Nina would nag Brock for a month to open his mouth in a way that wasn’t sexual. But Brock couldn’t bring himself to ruin what they had going. He knew if they talked about it, it would stop. The closeness, the companionship, the lo-

So, Brock was selfishly clinging to a drowning ship, in an attempt to save his own heart. At least that is what he told himself. He was the selfish one who couldn’t let shit go. He was the bad guy. Brock was always the bad guy.

But avoiding a topic for more than a month only leads to tension, and there is only so much tension that can be fucked out of two people. 

So, Jose mentions it. 

They are lying in Brock’s bunk on the bus, it is way too small for two people, especially one tall ass Canadian with limbs the length of the Nile. But ever since that first night, they just fall into place. Limbs accustomed to the slight stretch so they can both fit comfortably wrapped around each other. Jose’s head fitting to Brock’s neck like it was always meant to.

Jose doesn’t want to bring it up, but it’s been a month, and they have been acting like a couple, and they’ve been sleeping together, and they still lo- 

So, he brings it up.

“Brock?” The older man tilts his head down to meet Jose’s eyes. “What are we doing?”

As soon as the words leave his lips in a whisper, he feels Brock’s chest tense up and relax at the same time. 

“I don’t know.”

It wasn’t an answer in so many words. But the silence between the syllables served enough of an answer to make Jose’s chest ache. The hole that had been patched over with quick kisses in rehearsal and nights of cuddling and hair stroking and hand holding and pretending they were happy, suddenly flared up again. And Jose supposes that band-aids were never really a cure after all.

He tries to think of something else to say, anything else to say. He keeps coming up with three words. But he won’t whisper them in the dark, or to a closed door. Not this time. He won’t say them at all. He will roll out of bed in the morning and go back to his own bunk. He will dance and perform like his heart isn’t two feet away from him on stage. He will keep going. Because he has to.

And he will try and fail to stop sleeping with Brock.

He reasons with himself that sometimes he just misses his heart and needs to be close to it. 

He always sleeps better next to it. 

Brock would keep going. Pretending he was fine sleeping alone. His bunk always felt too small with just him in it, so how was he supposed to explain why now it felt too big. There was no warmth anymore. Just the sheets that smelled like something was missing. He didn’t even know something could smell like a lack of something, but Jose always made the impossible that much more real, so Brock really shouldn’t have been surprised.

He let Jose come back, time and time again. They would do the dance of “will they won’t they” knowing the outcome would stay the same. It was like reading a book you already knew the ending to, if the book was your heart, and also on fire. 

It would have to come to an end at some point. There was bound to be an explosion of feeling, and a wreck of emotion. There had to be. There was no other way.

But for now, it was just this. 

This limbo. 

This in-between heartbreak, and lust, and lo-

**Author's Note:**

> Apologizes if this seems rushed or incomplete. I was trying a new writing style that is more stream of consciousness, and more how my brain works. Hope it wasn't too hard to follow. <3


End file.
